Easy There, Mr. This Magazine

Let's go for a walk with this article.

It was written by Graham F. Scott and published at 'This Magazine.'

Let me get this straight: The United States finally elects a credible President; moves to enact more humane health care policies; attempts to rein in its legions of lunatic financiers; and gets a clue on climate change.

Credible President? According to what and whose standards? Is he taking a cheap shot at George W. Bush? This is a questionable opening line that can't possibly be proven. It's smells of circular reasoning. "Why is Bush not credible? Because he wasn't."

More humane health care policies? What makes it more humane? What figures suggest America is an inhumane society? Because Obama said so? Do, for example, U.S. Census Bureau, OECD and WHO statistics point to a cruel society? Are there not laws against refusal of care? Or does he mean about the insurance companies dictating terms? If so, are this the problem really restricted to one industry? This suggests there aren't other contributing factors.

In case he hasn't noticed, Americans are sharply divided if not against Obama's unpopular plan. There has to be a reason for this - aside from the race and scare-tactic reasons given.

Rein in its legions of lunatic financiers? Not only is this stereotypical and misleading, it's a meaningless ad hominen. Yes, the banks have been bad little corporate citizens but the author is making the fallacious claim that all financiers are bad. That it is incapable of rehabilitation. It also disregards the government's own dubious role on Wall St.

I'm surprised he didn't go farther and say Obama is out to save the free-market system with sound nationalization policies that will make the markets more efficient, honest and competitive.

His view of what is straight is crooked to me.

Meanwhile, Canada chugs along with its boring-but-stable banks and an imperfect but respected single-payer healthcare system. And we’re the ones who’ve “grown up,” according to National Post comment editor Jonathan Kay, in a preposterous on Newsweek’s website:

Suddenly Canadian attitudes have matured at a breakneck pace—and not just because Americans elected Barack Obama (though of course that’s a part of it). As Prime Minister Stephen Harper prepares to visit the Oval Office on Wednesday, Canada’s chronic anti-Americanism has entered a period of remission. [...]

Canadian anti-Americanism is fueled, fundamentally, by envy and fear. But over the past year, the United States has been laid low by a devastating financial collapse, a crash in home prices, and a worsening jobs crisis. Canada’s economy, on the other hand, has escaped relatively unscathed. … [The] healing trend comes primarily as an unintended effect of recent developments in Washington and on Wall Street. But it’s also a sign that Canada has grown up.

The drippy, patronizing tone of the piece is entertaining but wildly at odds with the facts: For the last decade or so, Canadians have gazed south with bemusement, horror, even—to quote Kay himself—”eye-rolling disapproval,” of American politics, economics, social policy, and military conduct. And why wouldn’t we? Kay says it himself (repeatedly): the U.S. is a basket case. This isn’t about Canada “maturing” enough to be nice to the U.S., as if it even had anything to do with Canada; it’s about the U.S. finally starting to dig itself out of the nightmare farce of the Bush years and attempting to be a reasonable partner in international diplomacy again.

Kay made a claim that anti-Americanism is fueled by envy and fear - itself a debatable, but not crazy, claim. While the U.S. struggles, Canada remains, for the most part, on a stable footing and this has helped to quell anti-American rhetoric. Then he asserts Canada has "grown-up." Our good situation plus some maturity - coincidental of course - was just what the doctor ordered. The problem with Kay's assessment is it infers Canada will never engage in anti-American rhetoric again.

So how does Mr. Scott answer the claim? With a few bits of specious logic while assuming ownership of some facts. Interestingly, he opened up his own article with statements that aren't rooted in facts but are really partisan opinions.

He suggests Canadians are right to, eyes-rolling and all, look down on Americans because they're a "basket case" on economics (without offering proof opting instead for it being self-evident), social policy (exactly how?) and military conduct (again, what's self-evident to him and those who support his position does not mean it's factual. It needs to be substantiated). Isn't this patronizing in itself? Let me answer that in a word: Yes.

Let's reverse this. Americans can take the exact same position. They can roll their eyes at our utterly dependent semi-diversified economy, kooky, expensive and misguided social policies and non-existent and poorly maintained military.

How can one version be truer than the other? It can't. Both are filled not with facts but perceptions, stereotypes and opinions.

And the dubious of all his claims: The United States is pulling itself out of the farcical Bush foreign policy nightmare. Again, how exactly? In relation to what? Iraq? Afghanistan? The Middle East? France? Banana Cantaloupe inc.? Wasn't the Millenium Fund for Africa a success? Weren't relations with India strengthened? To call what amounts to unpopular foreign policies a nightmare or farce is an exaggeration.

Again, this is not a factual statement, to the exten he'd like to believe, but one rooted in opinion. It's a tired one at that. It takes the position that Obama has come, cape and all, to clean up Washington and the mess left behind. However, one could just as easily counter by claiming Obama's own foreign policy (has he noticed Obama's team has many elements from the previous administration still around?) is digging the U.S. deeper into a problem. What makes his approach so much more better and effective? His tone? What are the concrete measures?

If he's going to claim one article of thought is preposterous, I suggest he and This Magazine do a little more thinking lest it leaves them, ironically, in a preposterous position of mistaking opinions for facts.

In the end, this piece inspired by Jonathan Kay suffers from false common sense and selective facts.